es to keep his own temper sweet. Oftentimes such men, particularly
society criminals and others who possess an especial fear of having
their wrong-doing known among their friends, try to keep from being
written up by saying they are unwilling to make any kind of statement
for publication, but that they will do so in court if anything is
published about them. The reporter will not let such a threat daunt him.
He will get the facts and present them to the city editor with the
person's hint of criminal action, then let the city editor determine the
problem of publication.

=74. Persons Divulging Secrets.=--Frequently a person of the second
class may be slyly converted into the group of those who do not know
they are divulging secrets, by the reporter deliberately leading away
from the topic about which he has come for an interview, then circling
round to the hazardous subject when the person interviewed is off his
guard. Probably the most ticklish situation in all reporting is here. To
make a person tell what he knows without knowing that he is telling is
the pinnacle of the art of interviewing. As Mr. Richard Harding Davis
has so exactly expressed it:

Reporters become star reporters because they observe things that
other people miss and because they do not let it appear that
they have observed them. When the great man who is being
interviewed blurts out that which is indiscreet but most
important, the cub reporter says: "That's most interesting, sir.
I'll make a note of that." And so warns the great man into
silence. But the star reporter receives the indiscreet utterance
as though it bored him; and the great man does not know he has
blundered until he reads of it the next morning under screaming
headlines.[4]

[4] _The Red Cross Girl_, p. 7.

It is for such reasons that a quick perception of news even in chance
remarks is a requisite for interviewing. If one does not grasp instantly
the value of a bit of information, the expression of his face or his
actions will give him away later when a full realization of the worth of
the news comes to him, or else he will not be able to recall precisely
the facts given.

=75. Retentive Memory.=--It is for the same reason, too, that a
retentive memory is necessary. Fifty per cent of those interviewed will
be frightened at the sight of a notebook. And all men become cautious
when they realize that their statements are being taken down